From Mumbai to Magadan in Russia

Team members and Western India Automobile Association officials at the flag-off at the WIAA office in Churchgate on Wednesday evening

An all-Indian team is off on a mind-boggling and audacious driving adventure from Mumbai to Siberia, Russia. An off-road pioneer, Nidhi Salgame, of Wander Beyond Boundaries (WBB), and her team started off on an epic journey from Mumbai to Magadan, Siberia. Five vehicles were flagged off from the city on August 2 evening.

This is India's totally desi, first self-drive overland expedition to Siberia. Indian vehicles, Indian tyres, and manned by an all-Indian crew. There is a convoy of five vehicles, which will drive 22,500 km in 75 days, crossing Nepal, Tibet, China, Mongolia and Russia to reach Magadan in the northeast corner of Siberia. After arriving at the destination, the cars will be shipped from Vladivostok back to India. It is a race against time for the adventurers; they must reach Magadan before winter sets in and make it to Vladivostok in 12 days as they need to cross rivers before they freeze and the road is still open.

Salgame said, "The spirit of exploration is at the heart of WBB. Overlanding or Extreme Overland drives are self-drive expeditions that head out to remote lands." Expedition leader Salgame, who lives in Greater Noida, transitioned into extreme overland drives going from heels to wheels, because of her nature. She said, "I am basically an outdoors person and started trekking in the Western Ghats when I was just seven; by 16, I was leading treks. I like driving to remote lands and experiencing local cultures, so love for automobiles came naturally."

From Mumbai

Flagged off from the city, the teams are driving via Udaipur, Agra and Gorakhpur to the Sonauli border in Nepal. On receiving Chinese visas and driving licences in Kathmandu, they will drive through Tibet and transit to Mainland China. From Ulanqab in China, the convoy enters Mongolia at Erenhot to Ulaan Batar. The convoy will traverse from the Roof of the World and Everest Base Camp to the Tibetan highlands, Yellow River, the Great Wall of China, Gobi Desert, Lake Baikal, Taiga forests to Oymyakon, the coldest inhabited place on earth. Coldest does not quite do it justice.

Of Oymyakon, reports state, "The cold is brutal. At times, your eyelashes and saliva may freeze into painful needles." Through this journey, the convoy will also travel on Kolyma Highway or the infamous ‘Road of Bones' from Yakutsk to Magadan. Built on permafrost by Gulag prisoners, it is considered 'the most dangerous road in the world'. It earned its Road of Bones epithet because there were thousands of forced labourers who were interred in the pavement during its construction.

Team diversity

Salgame who has curated and led over 25 expeditions across India, Uganda, Nepal and Kyrgyzstan leads a diverse team comprising expert mechanics, a video crew, an interior designer, a tech executive, an organic farmer and a politician. There is also a stockbroker, and a number of doctors on the journey: a gynaecologist, an anaesthesiologist, a gastrointestinal and laparoscopic surgeon plus a former professor. Salgame signed off philosophically that the journey is not just about terrain but also the mind. She said, "More than driving through diverse terrain, it requires an individual to undertake an equally intense journey within."

The team has fielded the inevitable question: Isn't it bad timing to travel to Siberia [Russia] right now? Salgame said, "People think of the Russia-Ukraine war and ask us why we're going there. Russia is a massive country. A flight from Vladivostok on the east coast to Moscow takes over nine hours. Siberia itself is two-thirds the size of Russia, so I don't think the war on the western frontier will affect us much since we're going to the northeastern corner of Siberia."